The liberation of small quantities of hydrogen gas from RTV addition cured polyvinylsiloxane elastomers, due to the reaction between the platinum catalyst and hydrofunctional polydimethylsiloxane, is a recognized problem. The evolution of the hydrogen gas results in the formation of pores in the model formed from the impression, producing an undesirable pitted surface.
In the U.S. Pat. No. 4,273,902, issued June 16, 1981, and assigned to G-C Dental Industrial Corp., of Tokyo, this problem is well described and a solution is claimed using 0.5 ppm or more finely divided palladium and/or a finely divided palladium alloy containing 10% by weight or more of palladium, without inhibiting the addition reaction. In Column 3, line 33 et seq., various other elemental metals are cited, including platinum, but are stated to be inferior to palladium and fail to eliminate the undesirable pores in the surface of the resulting model.
The adsorption of hydrogen by palladium is variously quoted as 502, 935 and even 2952 times its own volume, J. W. Mellor, Inorganic Chemistry Vol XVII 1947, page 616 et seq., while the adsorption of hydrogen by platinum black is quoted as 310 volumes in Vol. XVI. It therefore becomes apparent that these adsorption variabilities arise from differences in the available surface areas of the finely divided metals, but are not significant in the case of the polyvinylsiloxane elastomer application, since if sufficiently finely divided and present in adequate concentration, the adsorption saturation level will never be reached.
Another problem associated with polyvinylsiloxane dental impression materials is their extremely hydrophobic characteristics which lead to comparatively large bubble shaped artifacts in the surface of such impressions.